How to sew a dress for little dog from sleeve of old sweater

Introduction

Dog – is man’s best friend and owners of little toy dogs (Chihuahua, Yorkshire terrier, Russian Toy etc.) agree with this saying twice more. As when you buy the dog three times smaller than usual, you get five times more of endearment, love and good mood. It hurts me when one says about breeds of little dogs that they are ugly, stupid and in general it’s a lot of dull-witted glamorous ladies to keep them as pets. People who actually didn’t happen to meet these pets say so. The main charm of these breeds is that they are – everlasting puppies with devotion and loyalty not worse than by Bulldogs and Labradors. Small dog is not just an animal, but in fact it is a full child and comrade for all occasions. And every baby whether he/she dislikes it we wish to dress in lovely clothes. However, once you see the prices for such outfits in a pet store, you understand in horror that you can buy yourself a dress almost of the same price of a dog’s one. And as a matter of fact it is not really so difficult to sew for our smaller friends as it may seem to be at first glance. I offer you an option of sewing a wonderful dog-dress, which doesn’t demand any special skills or equipment. And besides, it requires no special costs, as we take a sleeve from old sweater as our basic material. It’s not only durable but also comfortable!

You´ll need

Sleeve of old sweater

Threads suitable for material’s color

Scissors

Glass beads and beads for decoration

Lace for frill

Ruler or tailor meter

Sweet tiny little dog

Steps

Every house surely has an old and unnecessary sweater, which has a ticket to a rubbish heap for a long time. But you were surprised of how well it could still serve you! In our case we don’t need the whole sweater, but just one sleeve. So we cut it as much as possible from the end. All the charm of tailoring from sleeve is that you practically have a ready-made basis and there is no need for you to pattern it. Please note that your doggie should conveniently fit in there in volume, as whoever likes clothes of a smaller size?

Now we take our obedient doggie (if yours is not so obedient then you’ll have to break a sweat a little bit) and put on the future dress so to mark the length. Previously turn inside out the sleeve with inner side and it is convenient to mark it with a felt tip pen (but don’t over push it so that the color won’t print on the front side).

I marked it with brown so to see it well. I have the length from the very edge to the first mark of 8 inches (20 cm). A bit below there is a second marking at a distance of about 2 inches (5 cm). The lower dash is – maximum length of the back (don’t make the dress too long as the length of the frill will add here and your dog may feel uncomfortable).

And now we connect the marks as it is shown on a picture: starting from the upper one, we move to the sides on the level of a second line. Certainly if you want another model, but the bottom may be simply straight, as everything depends on a model you have chosen.

We cut excess off along the line. The material which the sleeve is made of is important as well. If binding is loose (threads are easily torn at the seams), the sewing may turn into real hell. So I recommend you to choose the basic material made of as small knitting as possible.

Turn the item over. The seam will help us to look into where there will be little back or breast. In dog’s clothes everything is vice versa: the back is the main part, which is seen and should be decorated, and the breast – is the part which no one sees. Based on this fact, the side where there is a steam will be inner. Length on the breast in the dress should be significantly smaller. Walking outside in a beautiful outfit the little dog unfortunately doesn’t think of whether it can smudge it or not. It goes to the toilet, even though the length of the dress allows it or not. So we will be prudent and if the length of all dress is 9.84 inches, then the length of front piece should be about 6.69inches (everything depends on the size of your doggie). We mark the necessary length with an arch.

And now we cut off everything excess along the marked line.

Any outfit need openings for paws. Taking into account the fact that there will be no sleeves and holes for legs are also not necessary, we will need only two openings. We draw two ovals with a soft-tip pen leaving the distance between them around 0.8 inches (2 cm). So that circles turn out to be the same, you may previously draw a pattern of the necessary size on a sheet of paper. Everything depends upon sizes of your dog, but my holes are about 3.2 inches (8 cm) in diameter. Next apply the pattern to right place and draw it out with a felt-tip pen.

Carefully cut the holes for paws. I advise to cut such little details with sharp nail scissors, it may be more accurate.

It’s time of try-on. You may not turn the item out so to have an opportunity to mark problematic areas right on a dog. Here it is important to pay attention to openings for paws – either they allow the dog to walk conveniently, or it is tight for the pet. The larger holes you make the better it is. The other non-less responsible point is the length both back and front one. In the back length it is important that the dog could not only walk easily, but sit down and also be free to wag own joyous little tail when sees such a caring owner. The length on the breast mustn’t fetter walk and hinder going to the toilet (I advise to make this length as high as possible so that you don’t have to wash the dress after every walk). If you have noticed some errors it is high time to correct them till it is not too late.

When the basis is ready, let’s take up decorations, and here I’m speaking about a bow. For that cut out a rectangle from the remnants of about 7-8 inches (18-20 cm). Of course you can at all do without a bow or make it smaller or bigger in size. Moreover, except for a different size you may use another material, for instance knitting of the other color or ribbon and may be just a braid. Everything depends on your personal taste.

As you may have noticed threads bristle at ends that look very messy. There are two ways out from such situation. The first one: bend it by half an inch (1 cm) inside and sew with suiting color of the material. And the second one: we are going to use it. It is the way not for cookie-pushers, as I like the result very much. So that threads won’t stick out we sew them round with beads. To do that choose beads (I have pink one) of needed tint, but take notice the eye of the needle should easily pass through and won’t stuck inside (eternal problem). Besides of beads, you will need a box for beads, the best variant each of us exactly has is – lid from a jar.

Now the stage which is easily passed, but is difficultly explained. I drew a scheme of your moves in a picture. The first step: when embroidering in one thread (that is with a small knot on one edge and the second is always loose), make a big knot so that it won’t get through fabric and thread a needle in such a way that the knot would be left on the inner side. Next take three beads and insert the needle a bit right from the knot at the inner side. Second step: take three beads again and once again sew round threading the needle from the front side. Third step: repeat the second stage and you will see how gradually threads are hidden under beads.

When you sew round all the edges along the perimeter you’ll have to get such a framework for the bow. I warn you at once that the work is laborious and long-lasting, but it costs its price.

Put the rectangle before you with front side on a table. Now fold the edges to the middle. Notice at once whether you like such size of the bow (attach it to the dress) and if it is a bit bigger you may cut and sewn the edges once again. And if the bow is a bit small you’ll just have to accept that. Now stitch folded edges on to the middle with threads fitting the fabric’s color. Don’t worry if inexact stitches are visible from the front side – there will be one more detail from above and nothing unwanted will be noticeable.

We cut the square of about 2.3 inches (6 cm) of each side. Fold it in half with the inner side and stitch it with threads along the sideline edge. Then turn this construction inside out.

Wrap all you got from previous stage around the bow. With the help of threads fix the middle on the back. But please check that no threads are seen on the front part. Stretch all the parts of the bow accurately. You are to get such a knitted butterfly.

Take the lace, which you have prepared for the frill over the bottom. It may be of absolutely any kind but I seem to get my hands on right this one. Now turn up the edge to the inner side all along the perimeter of the lower part on 0.2 inches (0.5 cm) or less and stitch on with a common seam. When the edge is tucked (this was done so that threads didn’t come out), attach the lace from the reverse side and baste with packed seam once more. By such seam the thread is stretched evenly, quiltings are on a distance of about several millimeters. However, please note that no stitches are visible from the front side. I recommend you to make a quilting longer on the inside and on the front part to cling the fabric with a thread only a little. There is another option for decorating of the dress bottom – to sewn the edge with beads as you did it with the bow. But in such case two clear disadvantages are seen – you’ll spend three times more time and energy, and in my opinion it is far prettier with lace frill.

Like this looks the bottom of the dress from the front side. Outfit for real princess.

Let’s get back to openings for paws. By analogy with the way you tucked the bottom of the dress below do the same with these openings. Fold them for about 0.2 inches (0.5 cm) inside with packed seam. Or if you have time and desire to make the outfit smarter, overstitch edges of holes with beads.

Sew the bow to the bottom of the dress right above the edge. I advise you to fix the bow as well as possible not only in the middle, but also stitch its edges on to the dress so that the décor would endure combat conditions of your walk.

Go on decorating the outfit. I have chosen such a red bugles for decorating of fabric, but here everything is very much up to you. If the basic material is from good knitting, probably you don’t even have to embroider it, as the dress will look ready-made. However, in my case I thought it would be just necessary to decorate the outfit in any way. We take the jar lid once again, put there a needed amount of beads and check whether our needle is suitable to holes of bugles.

I decided to make embroidering in stripes and from the beginning of the collar to the end of the dress. Such a combinations turns out to be beautiful when beads are stacked together under a certain angle. Of course other variants are possible, for instance you may stack beads right under each other or in “twigs” or simply in one line… You may find a huge amount of examples on this topic in the Internet. In beads embroidery it is very pleasant moment that the space for your creativity has just no limits and actually no false option exists.

So that stripes, embroidered with red beads would fit with the dress on the whole, I decided to decorate the bow with the same beads. For this purpose I taking two beads at a time embroidered a few parallel stripes at the middle of the bow. It is my decision, but you can come up with something else.

Well and so that finely make the dress for real princess we’ll use small white beads reminding pearls. On the knitting of my sweater initially there were patterns of braids, and to the middle of every new wind I have sewn a bead. What is left is to try on and be sure that the doggie feels comfortable.

Such a smart dress I got.

Just try on and make sure that your doggie feels comfortable.

Warnings

The smaller the knitting is the denser loops come to each other and the less threads will come out at edges.

The dress requires no pattern as it is sewn of a ready basis.

You don’t need to have any special sewing skills and sewing machine.

Choose the decoration of the outfit yourself taking into account your own opportunities and taste, and try to accept this master class like a basis for your individual tailoring, you don’t have to repeat everything exactly.